“Quando noi fermerem li nostri passi
Su la triate riviera a’ Acheronte.”

“Will your Majesty enter?” asked John Eyre.  “Dr. Jones and some gentlemen wait on the other side to receive you.”

“Some gentlemen?” repeated Mary.  “You are sure they are not Minos and Rhadamanthus, sir?  My obolus is ready; shall I put it in my mouth?”

“Nay, madam, pardon me,” said the Earl, spurred by a miserable sense of his duties; “since you will thus venture, far be it from me to let you pass over until I have reached the other aide to see that it is fit for your Majesty!”

“Even as you will, most devoted cavalier,” said Mary, drawing back; “we will be content to play the part of the pale ghosts of the unburied dead a little longer.  See, Mary, the boat sinks down with him and his mortal flesh!  We shall have Charon complaining of him anon.”

“Your Highness gars my flesh grue,” was the answer of her faithful Mary.

“Ah, ma mie! we have not left all hope behind.  We can afford to smile at the doleful knight, ferried o’er on his back, in duteous and loyal submission to his task mistress.  Child, Cicely, where art thou?  Art afraid to dare the black river?”

“No, madam, not with you on the other side, and my father to follow me.”

“Well said.  Let the maiden follow next after me.  Or mayhap Master Eyre should come next, then the young lady.  For you, my ladies, and you, good sirs, you are free to follow or not, as the fancy strikes you.  So—­here is Charon once more—­must I lie down?”

“Ay, madam,” said Eyre, “if you would not strike your head against yonder projecting rock.”

Mary lay down, her cloak drawn about her, and saying, “Now then, for Acheron.  Ah! would that it were Lethe!”

“Her Grace saith well,” muttered faithful Jean Kennedy, unversed in classic lore, “would that we were once more at bonnie Leith.  Soft there now, ’tis you that follow her next, my fair mistress.”

Cicely, not without trepidation, obeyed, laid herself flat, and was soon midway, feeling the passage so grim and awful, that she could think of nothing but the dark passages of the grave, and was shuddering all over, when she was helped out on the other side by the Queen’s own hand.

Some of those in the rear did not seem to be similarly affected, or else braved their feelings of awe by shouts and songs, which echoed fearfully through the subterranean vaults.  Indeed Diccon, following the example of one or two young pages and grooms of the Earl’s, began to get so daring and wild in the strange scene, that his father became anxious, and tarried for him on the other side, in the dread of his wandering away and getting lost, or falling into some of the fearful dark rivers that could be heard—­not seen—­rushing along.  By this means, Master Richard was entirely separated from Cicely, to whom, before crossing the water, he had been watchfully attending, but he knew her to be with the Queen and her ladies, and considered her natural timidity the best safeguard against the chief peril of the cave, namely, wandering away.